


Moon

by sun_incarnate



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: M/M, Plane Crash, mentions of blood and injury, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sun_incarnate/pseuds/sun_incarnate
Summary: It's nighttime, but Jacob finds a source of light other than the moon.
Relationships: Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Moon Hyungseo | Kevin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44
Collections: Die Jungz Fest (R1)





	Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is Prompt # 93. I hope the prompter will be satisfied after reading this! Happy reading!

Jacob wakes up to his head pounded against rocks.

Childhood youth-camp involvements hadn't failed him, not once and hadn't ever since, but the rustle and bustle of summer camps had left him a different sort of unprepared to this.

It feels like a massive hangover, right down to the sluggish awareness of developing a migraine as he regains his senses one limb at a time. It starts on his head, but there had been something washing over his eyes so he didn't dare open them just yet. Which is just so, being as he's vaguely sensing harsh light coming down on him.

The bumping continues. There are hands—or at least they are, he guesses almost deliriously—holding the sides of his skull, and they're knocking his head against the surface where he's on. Each thump rings throughout his body and he just had the time to think "Wow that's an earthquake, I feel." before he's being submerged again. 

At the repeat of the sensation Jacob's now pretty sure he's underwater, reflex then making his mouth open only for it to be filled with salt, and instinct pushes him to finally flail around. 

His arm swats at something, and as he splutters in his near-drowning he sits up to cough the salt away. 

And this is where it starts, Jacob in a cave and his whole body itching at the slow-drying wetness, feverish and dazedly groping across his lap for the plane seatbelt that really should be strapping him down.

But the draft of sea breeze is yet to be registered, as well as this somebody else groaning beside him, because he focuses on that thing disappearing amongst the waves beyond; The silver tail of something that is definitely not just a fish.

Though he can't ignore everything else as he finally becomes aware of where he is, and even as Jacob shakes the water out his ear he makes his way further in. 

The somebody groaning before turns out to be another person, who's shuffled atop the silted floor of the cave. Jacob goes to approach him, the reality of the situation slowly dawning, but the person sits up before he could even shake him awake.

He's wincing, Jacob hears, and when he crouches to assess the person he sees dried blood on the person's thigh.

"Are you okay?" he asks, frantic at the sight but a little comforted that 

the blood's clotted already. But this way he can't know how deep the wound is.

He presses around the scab, hoping to gauge some reaction from the other person to see how bad the wound is. Judging by the way he's gotten no whimpers nor cries of pain, Jacob assumes the person's fine.

Which brings him to ask for the next thing.

"Were you on the plane, too?"

"Plane? What plane?"

So he isn't from the flight?

"The plane… " 

The other just eyes him, blank and unseeing.

"The plane," he tries again, now straining at the rush of memories he's seeing.

"The plane that crashe—"

"Crash! We're going to crash!"

Jacob grips his seat, refusing to look out the window. He knows what he saw is the truth. He knows what is happening. The ocean's coming closer fast, and he's watched it through the window. The captain said, "We're experiencing a minor turbulence. Please stay calm and seated." but Jacob hears the uncertainty.

His seatmate's a middle-aged woman, arguing with the stewardess that they should immediately brace for the crash. The stewardess just makes her sit back down and fasten her seatbelt, although she does direct her to the survival equipment underneath her seat. Jacob remembers how the words were shaking through her lipsticked mouth.

Jacob didn't fasten his. He's stayed stiff while praying, and through the window he saw the ocean come closer fast. Jacob didn't follow the rules, but he figures it's how he survived the crash at all.

"Plane… "

The other just repeats the word again. It registers that his company might be going through shock. Jacob does his best.

"Do you remember what happened before you woke up?" 

The other glances around. "Uh, shaking… so much shaking." His eyes go wide when Jacob holds his face to look him in the eyes.

"Do you remember where we were headed? Can you tell me your name?"

The reality must have sunk in then, because tears now trickle down his eyes, and he looks so scared that Jacob figures he must be someone way younger than he is.

"I'm… I'm Ric," he stammers out, choking through his tears. Jacob lets him hold onto his hands. "Eri-ric. Eric."

"Okay." Jacob forces himself to calm. "Okay." 

"Okay, Eric, can you tell me anything about you?" Jacob rips the bottom part of his shirt, listening to Eric say he's 16, he's on the plane to meet Dad in Seoul, he's from L.A., my sister drove me to the airport.

Jacob speaks to him in English, not knowing he'd find familiarity in such situation but hoping that it comforts Eric as he wraps the ripped cloth around the boy's thigh.

And sure enough, Eric's just sniffling when Jacob ties the knot. "Cobie-hyung," he says, unhesitant as he had been when he's first called Jacob's name few minutes ago. "Cobie-hyung, were you with anyone on the flight?"

"No. I spent my semestral break with my brother in L.A."

Jacob's found dry sticks on the far reaches inside the cave, and he's piling all of them between him and Eric in hopes of starting a fire. Eric's face is darkened from Jacob's shadow. The sun's set.

When a flame finally flickers to life, Eric wipes his nose and sniffles for the last time.

Jacob meets it again later at night.

It's purely accidental how he's stumbled upon this side of the cave, this rocky pool just out far back where the shallows are enough for him to wade through. Eric's still resting back inside, a sleeve of Jacob's shirt torn to wrap around his leg, and Jacob goes to scour food for both of them.

It's nighttime and there's no other source of light except the moon, so exploring further than the immediate vicinity of the cave is a no-go. Camp-trained Jacob is sensible enough to know that. So he decides fish is easiest to find in this situation.

Except, when he looks up from where he's surveying the outcrops, he sees it.

"Hello?" he asks, not sure why it's just staring at him. 

He isn't stupid, he knows it's likely bad idea to call out to someone something that clearly has a tail for legs (from what he could see, anyway) but Jacob just chalks it up to the hunger panging through him.

So he asks again. And again. "Hello?" Again.

It raises a hand. And waves a hand like it wants Jacob to go near.

Jacob thinks of Eric, waiting for him injured. He comes closer.

It's tricky to find his footing when there's so many rocks and his rubber shoes find no purchase when everything's wet and slippery, but he manages to approach it until all they've got between them is a meter of distance and a large rock where it's hiding behind of.

It's nighttime, but Jacob finds a source of light other than the moon.

He doesn't know anything besides the famous stories, besides Ariel and her sisters, besides what pop-culture has always shown through the media; he doesn't even know the difference between a mermaid and a siren. 

But what he does know, is that the tail he's seeing is real. It's glowing silver under the moonlight, all shine and glow and truths, and it's real.

The mermaid—siren? Jacob rethinks, before ultimately deciding to go with the former—is gazing at him curiously, the fins on his tail swaying with the crashing waves. Jacob keeps his hands open and on his sides, not wanting to signal any danger when he's probably at the mercy of this being.

"You don't have to be afraid of me." 

God. Jacob thinks. Then clamps a palm over his mouth, before realizing he must have looked stupid. Christian teachings are hard to shake off, and he doesn't ever mean to.

He clears his throat. "I'm not."

The mermaid juts its chin out, and when he speaks again Jacob notices sharp canines. 

"You are not?” 

When Jacob doesn't reply, the mermaid sighs, "I would greet you properly but the rocks here would do me more harm, so I will not."

"That is what you humans do, is it not?" it sounds so so playful, teasing so, and Jacob hadn't even realised he's already within arm's reach. "Greet each other properly?"

Jacob wishes he isn't attracted so to the way the voice entrances him, how it pulls and pushes at his senses as the waves still crashing against the rock. He's vaguely aware of the thought of Eric waiting back at the cave alone and wounded, of the fire that flickers weakly whenever a draft of air comes their way, but all of those seem so far away now when this mermaid's here before him, voice smooth euphonic Jacob thinks he can't blame the fishermen who drowned to hear more of it.

That snaps him awake. When he glares at the mermaid it just laughs, more air and sea-song than actual volume.

When it finishes the mermaid brings something from behind its back. A woven tray of what looks to be sea grass, and on it several fishes and clams. It sees the way Jacob eyes the food, and hands it to him.

"I know both of you are hungry. It has been… " trailing off to count, muttering something like one low-tide, two low-tides before focusing back on Jacob, "two days since you fell from the sky."

Two days. No wonder Jacob can barely go through a minute without thinking of food. 

Then he thinks about Eric's injury, but hesitates to ask if the mermaid knows anything that might help heal him. Maybe deep-sea plants it uses to heal its own wounds. Eric's wound isn't that deep but two days exposed is bound to result in infection.

He opens his mouth to disregard his hesitance, but is cut off when the mermaid apologizes, "I have only saved both of you. The boy was not wounded when I swam you to the cave, but when I got back his limb had already been punctured."

Then, like his compassion and kindness up until now hadn't already eroded Jacob's mind with its impossibilities, the mermaid smiles and shows his fangs. The eye smile is an unnerving contrast to the gleam of his sharp teeth. "So, will you be taking these fish or?"

"Good morning, Eric. This is Moon."

Eric stifles his scream with a fist. 

"Moon?" Moon asks. Jacob turns to him. "You glow silver."

Moon looks at his tail and smiles happily. Apparently content with it, he slaps it against the water.

"He's a… a—" 

Jacob prepares himself to calm the boy down, rethinks that maybe he shouldn't have introduced both of them so early that Eric's still just blinking sleep from his eyes. 

He's decided to have the younger meet Moon; he thinks Eric would like to know that it's the mermaid who saved them from the drowning after the crash.

But now that he considers it, Eric's shock from yesterday must still be here, because he isn't moving and he eyes the Moon from where he's pushed himself unto the shallows by the cave's mouth.

Jacob forgets about it soon enough. The worry evaporates right after Eric's mouth falls open with what looks to be wonder. "Wow."

Moon looks to Jacob, as if for explanation. Eric repeats himself. 

"Wow.

Now even Jacob's confused, but he figures Eric's probably struck with how unbelievable this all is.

"Wow," he shuffles forward, eyes taking everything in. "A mermaid."

"You're so… cool!" 

Moon, Jacob learned after they talked a bit last night, doesn't know anything by way of slang. But he looks pleased enough by Eric's open-mouthed smile, and so he braces his upper body up with his arms and tilts his head to examine Eric. The boy crouches down on Moon's level and the mermaid smiles approvingly at it.

"I like him."

Jacob steps in. "Eric, this is Moon. Moon this is Eric." The boy looks up at him. 

"Moon saved us from drowning. He's the one who brought us here in the cave three days ago."

The boy whips his head so fast between Jacob and Moon that Jacob hears his neck creak at the action. "Three days ago? That's insane." 

"Hyung, you sure we're not dreaming together?"

"No, we are not."

"Not mind-sharing? Linking? Like that thing they do on Pacific Rim?"

Jacob struggles to remember the detail about it, but says an affirmative "No." when he finally recalls.

"Wow."

And after that, Eric leans forward to talk with Moon. Jacob goes to ask him if he's comfortable with the position he's in, but Moon looks to be so engrossed in Eric's retelling of the original story of The Little Mermaid that he just goes to find more sticks for the night's fire.

It does not escape the both of them that it's been five days since the plane crashed. They've ventured into the island and had carried fallen tree trunks one by one.

They shape it into letters to spell out **H E L P** , and an arrow pointing to the cave. 

Eric giggled all the way through the process, saying how he's only seen this in the movies. Jacob laughs along, nape and arms sunburnt, hoping that people would come looking for them.

"Ric-ah, d'you think we'd live the rest of our lives stuck here?"

Moon's watching them from meters away, water reaching half past his waist, and even in the little light of the night he's still glowing like his namesake.

"Don't know, hyung." He scratches at the healing scab on his thigh, but Jacob can see how his fingers skip over the innermost part of his wound. 

It must still hurt, but Jacob's tried his best to remove the metal pieces from under his skin. He just hopes Eric there's no permanent damage to the tissues and muscles around it, no tear nor stuck debris.

"Maybe Moon could help drive fish our way," Eric looks tired in the low warmth of the firelight between them. Jacob laughs but the sound's as weak as their collective resolve. "If we spend enough time here maybe others like him would start showing up, too." 

Moon sometimes sings. He's taken to doing it right by the cave, where the water's deep enough to not have his tail be grazed by sands and rocks. 

He first did it right after Eric told him a story about all those mermaids singing, how they lured fishermen. He skipped the detail about how they drowned, and Moon just assumed they lived under the sea as partners. Jacob hadn't the heart to tell him the truth so he lets them be.

But now, he remembers it again.

And just like in the first night, Jacob finds himself entranced.

Everything's glowing again, but this time he thinks the color of Moon's voice has added to the shine. 

How had Jacob failed to notice that his hair's long enough to reach his shoulder blades, that it's a little ashy and how it too, like the rest of him, mirrors the moonlight?

How had Jacob failed to notice the way he sings like he's merely breathing the music out, all these melodies and words he picked up from Eric's rendition of Disney songs he's doing now so wonderfully that Jacob thinks to want this forever?

He knows they have families to get back to, that Eric's dad is somewhere waiting for airport doors to open to the sight of his son, but Jacob knows he's dreading the day the sound of rescue would arrive.

Moon took care of them as long as he can. Jacob didn't dare ask if he has any other business under the sea that's more important than caring for the two humans he's saved. 

It's been a little more than a week. Even Eric's smile is fading. 

Moon sings something else, something he said is taught to him by his mother.

It's inevitable, but Jacob still wishes. He doesn't know why this night feels like finality, like goodbye.

He hears Eric call out "Good night, hyungs!" from inside the cave, and Jacob goes out to see where Moon would disappear under the waves. Like he does every single night before they go to sleep.

Except now, Moon stays for a bit longer. 

He's floating not even a meter from where Jacob's navel-deep into the water, floating on his back and looking at the skies. The fins of his tail fan out, and Jacob watches as bioluminescent algae catch on the edges of it, making him glow even more. Those that get tangled on his hair make him look like he has stars woven between the strands.

Jacob aches.

Jacob wishes.

Moon sings one final song and then bids him good night. Good bye.

A boat shows in the horizon. Jacob goes to the shallows again, hoping he'd get to see Moon one last time.

Eric joins him, but gives out the moment they both can clearly see the people aboard the rescue boat. He leaves Jacob to go ahead and meet them.

"Hyung," Eric asks, the orange of the life vest he's wearing so startling Jacob has to look away. "Did you see him?"

" _Jacob, no need to cry for me_."

" _I won't if that's what you want of me_."

" _That is not what I want of you_."

"Yeah, I did, 'Ric. Sang me another Ariel song."

"Ah. I wish I could have stayed with you, then. To say good bye, at least."

The rescuer eyes both of them, but Eric asks them questions about the crash so they could be distracted. 

" _What is it, then? What is it that you want of me?_ "

Jacob looks back to the island slowly getting smaller. The engine of the boat finally taking them away back to home, and off they go.

When Eric asks him again for what Moon looked like when he said goodbye, hours later and where they're met by coast guards that took them inland, Jacob keeps quiet and says glowing.

Truth is, he doesn't have an answer. He closed his eyes when Moon kissed him, and when he opened them again, he wasn't there anymore.


End file.
